


(long) after (you're gone)

by patchfire



Category: Glee
Genre: 5x03, Air Force, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Not A Fix-It, There's No Fix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 14:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I'm not moving on, I'll love you long after you're gone.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	(long) after (you're gone)

**Author's Note:**

> There's no 'fix' for 5x03, but there is after those events. There's no closure, but there is Puck trying to find his way without his best friend. Life is messy and has no answers. This isn't answers... it's just more questions.

_Like a drum my heart never stops beating…_

Puck doesn’t look behind him as the motorcycle carries him away from McKinley, onto I-75 and away from Lima. There are three people in Lima he’ll keep in touch with—his mom, Jake, and Coach Beiste—and four reasons potentially to go back, but he doesn’t know when he will.

He rides the motorcycle all the way to San Antonio, where he kills the three weeks until basic training starts. Puck gets through the hard parts—usually someone in his face—by thinking about Finn, and reminding himself that that’s why he’s there. So something can substitute, however inadequately, for his best friend. 

After San Antonio is Phoenix, with the 62d, and Puck really is a pilot when he heads out again, to Eielson in Fairbanks. He’s still Puck, because it’s his callsign, but sometimes he’s Puckerman, and sometimes he’s even Noah, and very few people in the Air Force ask him about his past. 

A year and a half after Finn’s death, Puck gets a note and a package in the mail. Forwarded through Beiste, because she has his physical address, so Puck wonders how long before it was originally sent. The note and the package are both from Kurt, and Puck opens the envelope with a little bit of nervousness. 

_Dear Puck,_

_This is a long-overdue apology, so I hope you’ll read it and not just chuck it out. Grief makes us all do strange things, doesn’t it? And in the midst of feeling unsupported myself, I admit that I lashed out. In a strange way, I did it because I very much knew you_ weren’t _going to beat me up or throw me in the dumpster. Still, I missed the point of what you were trying to tell me: that you had nothing physical left of your best friend._

_I hope this note finds you well, and I hope you’ll excuse the delay in forwarding this to you. If you’re ever near New York, look me up._

_Sincerely,  
Kurt_

Puck waits until he’s alone that night to actually open the package, and he’s shocked but also unsurprised that the package is Finn’s letter jacket. It doesn’t mean as much to Puck as it would have eighteen months earlier, but it still means a great deal, and he lays it out carefully on his bed. 

“Letter jacket?” one of the other guys asks later. 

“Yeah,” Puck answers, nodding at him. “Was my best friend’s, back in high school.” 

“Ah.” The other guy—Prince—looks confused for a minute. “Why’d he send it to you?”

Puck smiles, a little sadly. “He didn’t. His brother did.” Puck sits down at the common kitchen table and shrugs a little. “Finn—he died, last year.”

“It’s good to have something to remember people by,” Prince offers after a few minutes, then claps Puck’s shoulder and leaves the kitchen. Prince isn’t wrong, though, and the next time someone asks about where Puck’s from, his thoughts after it are different. 

Three people to keep in touch with, and only three reasons to go back. He doesn’t have to go back to that place to see something tangible to remind him of Finn, not anymore. 

Another six months and Jake emails Puck about getting into college and moving somewhere in New England. That’s just two people left in Lima, the way Puck looks at it, because Jake won’t really be there much, if at all. 

Puck calls his mom only a few times out of the year, but Rosh Hashanah is one of them. He doesn’t think he’s actually religious, but being in the Air Force made it sort of easy to be more observant at least. He goes to services on base on the holidays and sometimes goes Congregation Or HaTzafon for Shabbat, when he can. 

“Noah,” his mom says with a strange tone in her voice, when he calls in September of 2015. “I suppose this is a good time to tell you.”

“Tell me what?” Puck asks, leaning against the wall and soaking up the sun that’s still around. 

“Your sister and I, and Jake’s mother—we’re all moving to Cleveland.”

“What, are you and Jake’s mom together now or something?” Puck asks, snorting. 

“No, Noah.” Puck can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “But we are good friends, and I had thought about relocating. Your sister’s excited, and when Jake’s mom had the opportunity in her job—it just makes sense, Noah. It’ll be easier for Jake to fly home from college, too.” She pauses. “Or if you ever came to visit?”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Puck acknowledges. “I could probably do Cleveland easier.” His mom probably thinks he means in terms of flying in and flying back out, and yeah, that’d be easier, too, but he really means easier for himself, in terms of going back to Ohio. Not having to go back to Lima would make a difference. 

By the time Hanukkah rolls around, his mom’s settled in Cleveland, and for the first time in two and a half years of being in the Air Force, Puck asks for leave. He lands four hours before sunset on the first night of Hanukkah, and stops to pick up some rugelach and a challah before he follows his phone’s directions to his mom’s new place. His sister doesn’t seem to care that he’s there, but Jake arrives a few nights later, and it really is good to see his brother. Puck, Jake, and their moms stay up late three nights in a row, talking about Jake’s school, Marley, Puck and ‘his’ F-16, Alaska, and their moms’ new jobs. They don’t talk about high school, Puckerman Senior, or Lima. 

Puck flies back the day after Hanukkah ends and volunteers to work Christmas Eve and Christmas, which gets him some grateful looks from some of the other guys. Puck feels like he’s accomplished something, in a way: he survived a trip back to Ohio, on his own terms. 

A little over a year later, when Puck’s contemplating re-enlisting, he takes another few days of leave, and he flies out to Chicago on a transport when Beiste says she’ll be near the Windy City. The two of them get lunch, dancing around painful topics, and then she talks Puck through the pros and cons of reenlisting. There aren’t really that many cons, in the end, which makes that part of the conversation pretty short. They’re looking over the dessert menu when Beiste changes the subject. 

“I’m probably leaving McKinley.”

“Yeah?” Puck puts his menu down. “You got a better offer?”

“It’s why I’m over here, actually. Northern Illinois,” Beiste explains. 

“Northern Illinois… wait, _college_?” Puck grins at her. “That’s pretty awesome.”

“First female in a Division I coaching job,” she says, nodding. 

“Congratulations!”

“I hate to leave McKinley in some ways, but in other ways—I think it’s time. I started during the 2010-2011 school year, you know? And suddenly the class of 2017 is graduating this year.”  
“Time keeps speeding up,” Puck agrees. They order their desserts and Puck takes a long sip of the coffee the waiter brought. “It’s almost been four years. I’m not really okay with that, you know?”

“No.” Beiste shakes her head. “I’m not either.”

“He would’ve been a teacher by now. Maybe not at McKinley, but somewhere. Some of those kids graduating this year would have known him.” Puck sighs. “And instead… none of them ever did, did they?”

“They didn’t start at McKinley until the August after,” Beiste confirms, nodding slowly. 

Puck blows out and shakes his head. “Make sure you give me your new address, okay? Chicago’s a pretty busy airport, you know.”

Beiste laughs and nods, and the conversation changes, but Puck realizes a few weeks later, when Beiste emails him her new address, that he’s free. 

There’s no one left in Lima, no reasons for him to visit, and no need to submerge himself in a place that’s going to always feel tinged with grief. It’s a revelation that makes him feel lighter even as it makes him feel a stabbing pain in his chest. Grief gets easier, no one was lying about that. Nearly four years later, and Puck even has a few days at a time that will go by, usually when he’s working twelve-hour shifts, when he doesn’t think about Finn. And when he does think about Finn, the pain isn’t always the sharp, stabbing pain that it was, continually, for the first month and a half after Finn died. Sometimes, though, it is. 

After a first date goes well. After a five-month relationship goes south. On Finn’s birthday. On Puck’s own birthday. On the day Puck finds out that along with re-enlistment, the Air Force wants him to get more advanced training, and then enroll in college. Instead, Puck talks to the other guys in his squadron about dates, Jake about relationships that end, no one on Finn’s birthday, and his mom on his own birthday. He doesn’t tell anyone outside the Air Force about the training or the college. He actually starts the college classes, online, while he’s still doing the advanced training, make it a hellacious sixteen or so weeks, but it keeps him busy, and he doesn’t like Phoenix that well anyway. 

After training, he gets sent to Shaw in South Carolina, which is a change after years in Alaska, and two years after that to Hill in Utah. His reenlistment comes up while he’s still in Utah, and this time he barely thinks about it before signing again. 

Puck’s still not sure, not really, that he’s the man he would have been, had Finn lived. He’s not sure he would have lived out west again, for starters. If he’d stayed in Lima, or even Ohio, he probably wouldn’t have even attempted college, but seven months after his second reenlistment, he graduates from college. He’s both more successful and less successful, the way he figures it. On paper, he’s a member of the United States Air Force, a college graduate, and someone who managed to make it out of a poor childhood in an impoverished area. 

On the other hand, Puck knows he’s emotionally poorer. None of the people in his squadrons have ever come close to being even half as good of a friend as Finn was to him. Finn probably would have pushed him to contact Shelby again long before Puck ever did, when Beth was ten. Finn would have told Puck to call his mom more often than seven or eight times a year, and Puck means to do it, really, but he gets busy and puts it off. Finn would have sat him down and made him actually do it. Finn would have called Puck out about the people he was dating, made the point that Puck was twenty-eight years old and it was okay to stop fucking around if he wanted to. Finn would have realized Puck wanted to stop fucking around before Puck did. 

Puck’s life is more successful, probably, but it’s definitely less happy. 

The invitation to the ten-year reunion somehow finds its way to Puck on base, just before he’s preparing to send in his application for Edwards. He finishes the application, RSVPs no to the reunion, requests leave, and books a ticket for Cleveland, landing the day before, and flying back the day after. 

On that Thursday, Puck gets the official word, that he’s moving to California. Two hours outside LA, give or take, which feels a little bit like full circle, but he doesn’t dwell on that, not on Thursday, and not on Friday morning as he packs. 

He doesn’t think about it on the plane or while he rents a car or while he visits with his mom and Jake’s mom that night. They don’t talk about why he’s in Ohio that weekend, which he appreciates, and when Puck wakes up the next morning, he puts on civvies and gets in the rental car. 

Puck stops in Upper Sandusky and kills time until dark, picking up a pack of cigarettes before getting back on US-30. He drinks a lot less than he did in high school. He doesn’t even habitually smoke, but he goes through the equivalent of a pack a month, though months at a time can pass between cigarettes. 

The reunion isn’t at the fucking school itself, which is good; Puck’s not sure he wants to see the school. He tells himself that, anyway, but he drives past to look at Finn’s tree, which looks like it’s growing as well as a tree can in nine or so years. He doesn’t get any closer to it or get out; Beiste had told him, years ago, that she retired Finn’s number, a ‘5’ jersey enshrined on the locker room, and while a tiny part of him does want to see it, he has a picture. Anyway, he’d probably get pissed if it wasn’t pristine and honored, and as active-duty military, he can’t afford to be caught breaking and entering, much less angrily destroying a locker room. 

No, the reunion’s at the Wingate, next to the civic center. He snorts at the name of the civic center. Veterans’. He doesn’t feel particularly honored by the name. The building across the street from the hotel still has the same insurance company inside it, though there’s a new-ish looking awning, and Puck positions himself under the awning, hidden by the dark and the shadows. He lights a cigarette and watches. 

Puck sees plenty of people that he doesn’t recognize. If he went in and stared at them, stared at their nametags, he might recognize a few more. Like everything at McKinley that’s supposed to be sorted by class or year, no one seems to be regarding the rules, because Puck sees Tina, Artie, Sam, and Blaine all walk in. He recognizes Mike Chang, and raises his hand in a silent salute. Mercedes gets a quiet smile, whether she knows it or not, but she is the only one, out of all the attendees, who even seems to notice the light from the tip of Puck’s cigarette. 

She stares across the street for long enough that Puck starts to feel uncomfortable, and at one point, Puck thinks she might end up walking over to him. Someone inside must call her name, though, because she turns and goes inside, instead. 

Puck stands there for so long that he’s convinced the next two people aren’t going to show up, but they do. Santana and Rachel arrive at the same time, along with a blonde that Puck realizes belatedly is Quinn. He feels vaguely guilty that he hasn’t thought about Quinn in years, not even as Beth’s birthmom. Another blonde chases after them, and this time Puck is more confident that it’s Brittany. The four of them go inside, the very last to arrive, and Puck sits down, his back still against the wall. 

It was what he had expected, really, even ten years earlier, even before Finn died. Finn wouldn’t have gone to the reunion, unless he was somehow still with Rachel, but Puck doesn’t think Finn would have been. They were a great high school couple, and maybe would have gotten back together in college or right afterward, but Puck knew them both well. In the end, both of them did have dreams, but they weren’t compatible dreams. 

Rachel’s attendance doesn’t surprise Puck, nor does Kurt’s absence. He would have predicted both, years ago, and he grins a little to himself as he lights another cigarette. He didn’t even need the psychology minor to predict their behavior. Puck stays for another two hours, until the pack of cigarettes is empty, and then he gets back into the rental car and drives down to Wright-Patterson in Dayton, where the base commander is amenable to putting up a F-16 pilot for a night. 

In the morning, Puck drives I-70 and I-71 back to Cleveland, leaving early enough that he has time for brunch with his mom before he flies back to Utah. The weeks after are a mess of packing, making moving arrangements, and more than a few congratulatory get togethers before he moves out to Edwards. 

The email takes him by surprise, a good six weeks after the reunion weekend, and he guesses he didn’t see it while he was moving. He still waits three more days, for his off day, before he opens the email. The subject is “I hope you’re well” and the sender is Mercedes Jones. 

_Puck,_

_It was good to see you the other night. Or, at least, to see your outline. There’s only one person who would have stood outside our class reunion, keeping vigil, so don’t even pretend it wasn’t you._

Puck has to stop and chuckle. Mercedes isn’t wrong, he guesses. He was keeping vigil, being there but not being there, because Finn’s choice to attend or not was taken away from him. 

_I don’t keep in touch with many people, so it took me some work to find out where you were. I’m assuming you’re in the Air Force, because of this email address, but that’s all I really know. Apparently you don’t really keep in touch with anyone, either._

_But I’d like to know how you are. I mistyped that the first time and wrote ‘who’ you are. I have a feeling that for you, like for me, that might be more accurate._

_Kind Regards,  
Mercedes_

Puck actually smiles at the screen. He figures someone else must’ve put Mercedes in touch with Beiste, or maybe with Jake, but likely Jake would have emailed him a heads-up. Puck leaves the email up and waits until the evening when he sits down with a beer to reply. 

_Mercedes,_

_I can’t say I wasn’t surprised to see your name in my email. I apologize for the delay in response; I didn’t actually realize you’d emailed until today, thanks to a move and starting in with a new squadron._

_Until the move, I was in the 388th Fighter Wing out of Hill Air Force Base. That’s in Utah. The Air Force hasn’t been all bad. It’s even been mostly good._

_You’re right, I was outside the reunion. I didn’t really want to see anyone, or at least not most people, but I needed to mark it in some way. I thought you noticed me at the time._

_Who am I is a good question. The easy answer, I guess, is First Lieutenant Puckerman, United States Air Force, 412th Test Wing out of Edwards Air Force Base in Edwards, California. Unmarried, unpartnered, usually single. My mom likes me better than she did in high school. Puck is my callsign but out of the cockpit I’m either Puckerman or Noah. More and more frequently it’s Noah, which I mind a lot less than I would have even three or four years ago._

_I’m attaching my contacts card, if you’d rather take this to postal mail. It’d be nice to get something that wasn’t a bill._

_What about you?_

_Best,  
Noah_

He doesn’t hear anything back from Mercedes for a few weeks, but about a month later, he gets a handwritten letter, which starts one of the oddest friendships Puck can remember having. Mercedes’ letter is usually responding to things that are at least a month, if not two, in the past, which gives Puck a weird sort of perspective on his life that he doesn’t remember ever having. After a year, they start directly talking about people from Lima, including Finn, and Puck admits to Mercedes that he feels like he’ll spend his entire life trying to being the man Finn always was certain that Puck was. Mercedes tells him she thinks Puck already is, which makes Puck scoff, but still, he takes a day of leave to visit her in LA, and neither of them mentions explicitly that it’s the ten year anniversary of Finn’s death. 

Puck doesn’t think that there is a fifteen year reunion; neither he nor Mercedes hear about anyone going to one or get an invitation, anyway. When the twenty year reunion approaches, he thinks about going and standing vigil again, but it doesn’t feel as important as it once did. He remembers his best friend almost daily, and if the others don’t, it truly is their own loss, for not remembering Finn Hudson. Plus, Puck is caught up in paperwork about retirement, paperwork about graduate school, and diapers. 

Fifteen years after he last was in Lima, Puck goes to his twenty-fifth reunion. In the end, he’d retired as a Captain, with more hours in the cockpit than he can really comprehend, and promptly gotten his master’s degree in school counseling, using the psych minor after all. He ended up in a place he’d never even considered, working in a high school in downtown Seattle, living not too far away with his small family. He’s forty-three years old, and he was at least thirty-five years old before he even began to feel okay with himself, and he’s finally okay enough with himself to go to a high school reunion. 

“You came alone?” a voice behind Puck asks, and he turns to smile at Mike Chang, whom he guesses he’ll recognize no matter how old they both get.

“My partner wanted to stay at home with our son,” Puck says easily. “But I did invite a plus-one. She’ll be here soon.”

“Yeah?” Mike says, sounding interested, and Puck nods behind Mike. Beiste might be retired, now, but she was still the first NCAA FBS female coach, the first to win a bowl game, and the first to take a team to the BCS championship games. More than that, though, she was the person Puck would ask to be his attendant, if they ever did get married, and in a lot of ways, more of a parent than either of Puck’s biological parents. “Coach!”

“Hi, Mike.” Beiste nods at him with a smile, then takes Puck’s arm. “Are you ready, Noah?”

Puck nods and they walk in slowly. As Puck’s holding the door, he looks questioningly at Beiste. “Well, what do you think?”

“Well, you never got shot.”

“Not in the Air Force, anyway. Guess it’s still possible,” Puck says with a laugh.

“Yeah, I think you’re having a good line,” Beiste says softly. “And I’m pretty sure he’d think you’re a good man.”

“I still miss him,” Puck says softly. “Most days. I don’t think more than forty-eight hours ever passes without me thinking about him, what he’d be doing, what he’d think about me now. Somebody tried to tell me, back around ‘19, that it’d change over more years. But it hasn’t.”

Beiste shrugs. “Maybe it does for some people, but that doesn’t make your way wrong, either. It’s better to remember than to forget, for sure.”

“You think he’s somewhere laughing at me, for not letting go?”

“Nah, it probably makes him grin.”

“That big, goofy one, yeah.”

Beiste laughs, then smiles at Puck. “But he might not understand one thing.”

“Yeah?”

Beiste laughs. “I bet you anything he’d say he didn’t deserve the honor of being your son’s namesake.”

Puck laughs along with her. “Too bad. That decision stands.”


End file.
